The “backrooms” meme complex started out with a single, simple image posted on the infamous message board 4chan in 2019. It was an empty room, maybe in a convention center or hotel, with yellow wallpaper lit by yuck-inducing fluorescents. Some posters responded to the creepy image with little stories about “the stink of old, moist carpets” and speculation about what kind of creatures would be stalking the endless expanse of abandoned rooms. Other posters found examples of the backroom aesthetic in their own camera roll. There were dead malls, closed shops with random, cast-off furniture lying about, and long hallways leading nowhere. The common thread in these “liminal spaces” seems to be areas designed to accommodate large numbers of people but are currently empty. The rooms themselves suggest the ghosts of people who should be there, but are not.
Kane Parsons was a teenager in Petaluma, California, when he saw the backrooms creepypasta. Since “finding creepy abandoned spaces to film in” is a foundational skill for the no-budget filmmaker, Parsons decided to make some YouTube shorts in the world of the backrooms. His super-creepy videos caught on, and last year, indie studio A24 came calling. Now, at age 20, he has become the youngest director ever to earn $100 million at the box office.
Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is having a rough time. His dream of becoming an architect has slipped away, and he’s found himself the owner of a struggling furniture store named Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire. His soon-to-be-ex-wife has kicked him out of the house after getting sick of his drinking and now he’s living in the store. All he can do is replay their final marital confrontation with his therapist Mary (Renate Reinsve), who is herself struggling with PTSD stemming from her abusive, agoraphobic mother.
When he calls an electrician about some weird issues in the store, they discover that someone has installed a new circuit breaker in the breaker box, but turning off the breaker doesn’t seem to do anything. Then, one late night, Clark discovers that he can walk through a seemingly solid wall in the basement. On the other side is a huge room with yellow wallpaper lit with humming fluorescent bulbs. In the middle of the room is a pile of random furniture. It’s a classic backrooms environment. Clark is drawn deeper into the maze of rooms and hallways until he hears something else moving. Spooked, he manages to find his way back to the store basement. The next day, he tells Mary about his experience, but sensing that she is sizing him up for an antipsychotic medication prescription, he promises to bring her proof. He recruits his sales clerk Kat (Lukita Maxwell) and her boyfriend Bobby (Finn Bennett) to accompany him on a video expedition to document this seemingly supernatural space. When they don’t return, Mary goes looking for them, only to find herself lost in the backrooms, too.
Much has been made of Backrooms’ meteoric success, but the truth is, there’s nothing revolutionary about it. Parsons followed the classic indie film model: Make a no-budget proof of concept, hustle to build out a loyal core audience, and leverage that modest success into a workable, but not huge, feature budget. Yes, Backrooms is based on a meme, but its cinematic influences are clear. Parsons’ use of interlaced, first-person video like The Blair Witch Project evokes the creeping dread of John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, and delivers a variation on the evil clown from It. He leans heavily on his two talented leads to sell the scares. Ejiofor delivers a nuanced performance, particularly when he can’t stop his despair from leaking through as he records what is supposed to be a funny TV commercial for the store. Parsons may be young, but Backrooms is the real deal.
Backrooms
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